Posts and ramblings of Aquarium-loving South African Asatruar/Heathen Karl Andresson. Will post anything that may tickle my fancy. Original posts as well as many reblogs. All media belong to their respective owners – unless stated otherwise, and will be removed if the owners show any objections as to the use of their property.

Main menu

Tag Archives: Medieval

Post navigation

From the Highest Peaks of Midgaard Where the Sons of Men Do Hold, To the Killing Chill of Niflheim The Land of Ice and Cold. To the Furnace Blast of Muspelheim Where Flame Leaps Far and Nigh, Nothing Born of Yggdrasil Escapes the Ravens Eye.

Down To the Depths of Svartalfheim Where Stone and Anvil Call, Unto High Liossalfheim Where Dark Ne’er Comes at All. High Up Over Jotunheim Where Giants Hold Their Court, All the Deeds of Every Land The Ravens Sift and Sort.

To the Heights of Vanaheim Where Elder Gods do Roam, Unto the Deepest Reach of Hel Where Spirits Make Their Home. And Last Up Into Asgaards Halls Where They May Find Their Havens, For It Is Known, Though All Men Fall, The Gods Do Keep the Ravens.

(A poem written by ThorinRuriksson of Reddit to help you learn the nine realms. Original Post. ThorinRuriksson…

The Change Cut is simply to change off before your opponent with your cuts, from one side to another, from above to below, and vice versa, in order to confuse him.

I’m tempted to interpret this as beginning the cut along one line and then changing to a different line midway through the action. This can be done with any sword, but is particularly effective with the longsword because of the extra mobility offered by the two-handed grip. However, I believe that is actually called Fehien or Failing.

So for the time being I’m sticking to what I wrote in Talhoffer 1467 Plate 2 Right. Specifically, this is just a cut used to change lines or guard rather than to attack with.

Confirmation that bones found in a tomb in Magdeburg Cathedral, Germany, are of a Saxon princess, the oldest English royal remains to be found. The bones are part of the body of the Saxon princess Eadgyth, the granddaughter of King Alfred the Great, who died more than 1,000 years ago.

The tomb where they were found was first investigated in 2009, but it was then believed the bones had been moved. Two years ago German archaeologists opened the tomb, expecting it to be empty, but found it contained a lead box with the inscription, “The remains of Queen Eadgyth are in this sarcophagus”. The bones were inside, wrapped in silk.

The latest techniques have been used by experts from the University of Mainz and the University of Bristol to analyze the bones and some teeth found in the upper jaw. It was discovered they belonged to a female who died aged between…

So there I was the other day, driving home from work, caught in traffic, stuck behind a car whose exhaust system needed serious attention. As I wrinkled my nose and said, “Eew, gross” the thought hit me: We like to think that we live in a pristine, modern world that smells sweet while looking back in time and assuming everything stank like sewage all the time. But did it?

Uneducated modern thinkers might assume that because there was no running water in the Middle Ages everything was dirty and smelly. Well, if you’ve known me and heard me talk about history long enough then you know that nothing galls me more than this completely false assumption. As I discussed at length last year in my blog post about how medieval people did bath, frequently, hygiene was far more advanced a thousand years ago than modern people assume.

This is a subtype of the Zwerch used in the middle of the fight. It seems like more of an attack of opportunity than something one would do intentionally.

This is so called from the body part to which it is directed. Do it thus: After the initial Onset, when you have come under your opponent’s sword with your hands up above your head, and he holds his head thus between his arms, then cut with Thwart Cuts under his pommel up toward his wrist-bones or wrist-joints. If he holds his hands too high, then cut with these Thwart Cuts up from below toward the knob of his elbows; thus it is done.

Yesterday I was in the supermarket shopping for ingredients to make spiced apples. It’s a large hangar in South East London which could happily accommodate several small aircraft – arguably more useful than the hordes of shoppers unthinkingly purchasing useless goods for the weekend. Being late October there’s a respectable Hallowe’en section [the fresh pumpkins get thrown away on 1st November] comprising all kinds of artifacts from ghost to cat trinkets and plastic scythes. As I made my way to the tills to purchase my ingredients I caught sight of an abhorrently corpulent mother buying armfuls of Hallowe’en materials, deadened face, deadened appearance, going through the motions of purchase at the shop’s behest. One of the things she was buying was a witch’s broom – probably for her daughter.

It occurred to me in that moment that there was a strong likelihood she had no idea why the broom was…

The BBC has been running a TV series based on the books of Terry Deary – the Horrible Histories. They’re a very irreverent look at different periods in the past. Take this one on the medieval era as a good example.

This is simply a tip cut to the face. It seems to be more of a harassing move in anticipation for a more definitive strike.

Bind your opponent from your right on his sword; in the bind, wind through below with your hilt or haft toward [your] left side. When your opponent tries to slip after the winding, then nimbly flick the foible, that is the point, at his head from your right at his left with crossed hands. Quickly wind back through, or wrench to your left side with the short edge; thus you have executed the Blind Cut. This Blind Cut is done in many ways; there will be more about it in the section on devices.

I must confess to a youth as a stamp collector (yes, I did spend hours in the dark closet, trying to find out if a stamp was florescent or not) and when the Oseberg Viking ship project (I`ve written about them in an earlier blog post) started posting pictures of stamps with the Oseberg ship on them on their Facebook page, I just had to repost those pictures – and add some of my own:

I`ll start out with Canada – a country that shares some of our Viking history, as I wrote about in my previous blog post. I`m not sure how old this stamp is but it`s beautiful with the Oseberg ship and the old map.

Textual Argument 1

Meyer writes,

This cut is executed thus: stand in the Wrath Guard with your left foot forward; if your opponent cuts at you, then step with your right foot well out from his stroke toward his left side; cut with the long edge and crossed hands against his cut, or across on his hands between his head and blade, and let the blade shoot well over his arm, as can be seen in Image D in the figures on the upper…

Scheitelhau, or the Parting Cut, is the last of the five Master Cuts. Like the other master cuts it begins with the Zornhau, which the ancients call the Father Stroke. And like any other cut, it it to be performed with a step.

The trick here is that step is broken. Meyer writes,

Thirdly there are the broken or stolen steps, which are done thus: act as if you intend to step forward with the one foot, and before you set it down, step backwards with it behind the other foot. Since these properly belong in the rapier I swill save it for there.

I have to admit I discovered this by accident. As I started my Zornhau I thought, “Ha! You’ve over-reached and I can void your pitiful cut by aborting my step.” While I focused on that, my Zornhau was left to its own devices. Without my body…